Another big event in September was the Four Mile Canyon fire that occurred in a canyon due west of Boulder. The smoke was black and it simply plumed up into the sky sometimes making the sunny skies turn a gray/yellow haze. The smell was intense too and I couldn’t believe that it affected us in north Thornton although we are due east of the intense fire. I wish I could e
quate the burning stench to something but I can’t…it was just crazy…that’s all. The first picture is from Day One of the fire from our neighborhood park at the top of the hill. The second picture is from Day Three and you can see how the fire was festering along the front range after the first set of hills.
Ryan was busy at work dealing with ash falling onto his car, dealing with the HVAC issues affecting all the servers holding maps and working with employees to ensure their safety. One even bought a house in the canyon 4 days prior to the fire so listening to those calls was scary, fascinating and interesting all at the same time.
ith birthday parties…Two on the same day. Jack chose a dinosaur tattoo for his forehead (nice placement) and Eban chose tattoos for his arm. Showing up at the next party was awesome as the boys were all tatted up and Eban even chose a painted shark to adorn his head. Nice. And check out Jenna's, Jaren's mom, culinary creations - - cake in a cone. The boys LOVED it. She certainly showed me up with that sugary delight! 
, we headed over to Morgan’s 3rd birthday. It was a princess theme. This was our first princess theme party and we thought it would be great to dress the boys up as frogs but we didn’t go out and purchase those costumes. 
Darn it. Eban loved the hammock in the back yard and Jack loved playing with a toy air gun (of sorts). Most of all, I had to thwart their quick hands as they wanted to pull the strings to undo the piñata. That would have be great to watch the piñata break as little Morgan howled with sadness as the two Tracy boys dug into the piles of candy.
The dogs a
re fine. Seamus is aging and it’s sad to watch him move slower and be a tad more needy. He’s leaning all the time on my legs and head butting my legs for attention which is unlike him. He typically is content to lay and snort all day and ignore everyone. This shift has me worried. Harriet - - well - - she’s sweet but eating all the furniture in the front room so Ryan wants to give her away. He hasn’t yet but I feel like those aren’t idle threats as eating furniture is, indeed, problematic.
bors in Deerfield and Val Hobbs brought the boys painting toys. We didn’t know how they’d fare at this craft but Eban went nuts for this project. He was SO into it I couldn’t believe it. 
He even painted the wooden airplane like the airplane shown on the box and his concentration to detail was impressive for us to watch. Jack made a car but we fixed it up for him - - not Eban’s. Eban was completely enthralled and we realized that we needed more activities of this nature as he really enjoyed doing it. 
irst we had in September was a neighborhood block party. Prior to the potluck, there was a neighborhood scavenger hunt and the Stuck
’s girls and the Tracy boys were on the same team to collect random items from the neighborhood. We got in second place and we won a $10 gift card to see a movie and the parents won 5 scratch lotto tickets!! What a sweet neighborhood party with prizes like that, huh?! Anyway, the boys didn’t quite get the concept of asking for things and instead wanted to go into everyone’s house and play…especially if there were toys in the house. They would cry when we would leave and it got a little crazy, but hopefully it will ease up for next year and they’ll get the concept of the ‘game.’ It was fun to meet new neighbors and hang out…the Stuck girls even came over to our house after dinner for a neighborhood movie. I think we watched Cats & Dogs 2. 
Lastly, in late Sep
tember, we took another trip to the zoo. The boys loved the yellow pufferfish in the aquarium part and loved the choo-choo train. 
The boys even chose to ride together on the train and had me sit in the seat ahead of them. 
This was a first and I liked seeing that they wanted to hang out.
Ahhh…the below quick video is a short snippet of the train ride
